Color imaging systems known in the art permit images to be captured by certain color-imaging media, possibly digitized and stored, and then output onto complementary media. So, for instance, color images may be first captured on negative-working silver-halide-based photographic film and then reproduced on negative-working photographic paper. Such images may or may not pass through a digital intermediary stage. In another case, color images may be captured on positive-working photographic materials, known as transparencies, and then viewed directly by projection or back-illumination, or copied onto larger or smaller transparencies, or printed onto positive-working photographic paper. Again, such images may or may not pass through a digital intermediary stage.
Color-imaging systems in which the image passes through a digital intermediary stage are often referred to as “hybrid” imaging systems because they combine elements of photographic or other chemical-based imaging together with various elements of electronic imaging systems. Hybrid systems can offer advantages such as convenient image modification, image editing, and image storage.
A hybrid imaging system must include a method for scanning or otherwise measuring the individual picture elements of the photographic media, which serve as input to the system, to produce input image-bearing signals. In addition, the system must provide a means for transforming the input image-bearing signals produced by the input scanning device to intermediary image-bearing signals, i.e., to an image representation or encoding that is appropriate for the subsequent applications of the system. Accurate transformation of the input image-bearing signals to and from the encoded image representation requires calibration of the various input and output media and devices of the system. Techniques for such calibrations are well know to those skilled in the art.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,919 entitled COLOR REPRODUCTION SYSTEM by W. F. Schreiber, discloses an image reproduction system of one type in which an electronic reader scans an original color image and converts it to electronic image-bearing signals. A computer workstation and an interactive operator interface, including a video monitor, permit an operator to edit or alter the image-bearing signals by means of displaying the image on the monitor. When the operator has composed a desired image on the monitor, the workstation causes the output device to produce an inked output corresponding to the displayed image. Calibration procedures are described for transforming the image-bearing signals to an image representation or encoding so as to reproduce the colorimetry of a scanned image on the monitor and to subsequently reproduce the colorimetry of the monitor image on the inked output.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,956,044 entitled IMAGING DEVICE TO MEDIA COMPATIBILITY AND COLOR APPEARANCE MATCHING WITH FLARE, LUMINANCE, AND WHITE POINT COMPARISON by E. J. Giorgianni and T. E. Madden, describes an imaging system in which image-bearing signals are converted to a different form of image representation or encoding, representing the corresponding colorimetric values that would be required to match, in the viewing conditions of a uniquely defined reference viewing environment, the appearance of the rendered input image as that image would appear if viewed in a specified input viewing environment. The described system allows for input from disparate types of imaging media, such as photographic negatives as well as transmission and reflection positives. In that disclosure, images are digitally encoded in terms of the color appearance of the image being scanned (or of the rendered color appearance computed from a photographic negative medium being scanned), and calibration procedures are described so as to reproduce that color appearance on the monitor and on the final output device/medium.
The colorimetric image representation or encoding described by Schreiber is appropriate and desirable for applications where the intent is to represent the colorimetry of an image reproduced directly on, or to be subsequently produced from, a color-imaging medium being scanned into the imaging system. The color-appearance image representation or encoding described by Giorgianni/Madden is appropriate and desirable for applications where the intent is to represent the color appearance of colors as reproduced directly on, or to be subsequently produced from, various color-imaging media scanned for input to the system. In each of these descriptions, the photographic image being scanned is taken to be the original to be reproduced. While calibration is described in each of these systems to allow the appropriate reproduction of the scanned image, neither system provides or requires calibration of the input photographic medium, i.e., calibration which would describe the relationship of the scanned image to the original scene or other source of exposure which caused the photographic image to form. Because each system treats the scanned photographic image as the original to match, such input-medium calibration generally is not required. In some cases, however, calibration of the input medium still may be desirable so that deficiencies or irregularities of the particular medium can be compensated for via subsequent signal processing.
It is well known to those skilled in the art that the colors reproduced on, or produced from, a photographic color-imaging medium generally are not colorimetric matches of the actual colors originally photographed by the medium. Colorimetric differences can be caused by the color recording properties of the medium, i.e., its formation of a latent image in response to exposure. Colorimetric errors can also be produced by the color reproduction properties of the medium, i.e., properties related to color image formation subsequent to color image recording. These reproduction properties include the characteristics of the medium's chemical signal processing, such as the relationship between exposure and dye formation within each layer and the chemical relationships among the various image-forming layers of the medium. Color reproduction is also influenced by the colorimetric properties of the image-forming dyes of the medium.
For some hybrid-imaging applications, such colorimetric differences from original-scene colorimetry are not necessarily detrimental. Indeed, such differences may even be desirable. For example, a photographic slide film might be deliberately designed to enhance the reproduced chromas of certain colors. However, in other hybrid imaging applications, it is not desirable to represent the colors of the image as they appear on, or as they are produced from, the color-imaging medium being scanned into the system. In such applications, it would instead be desirable to form image representations that correspond more closely to the colorimetric values of the colors of the actual original scene that was photographed by the color-imaging medium. Examples of such applications include, but are not limited to, the production of medical and other technical images, product catalogues, magazine advertisements, artwork reproductions, and other applications where it is desirable to obtain color information that is a colorimetrically accurate record of the colors of the original scene. In these applications, the alterations in the color reproduction of the original scene colors by the color recording and color reproduction properties of the imaging medium are undesirable, and the previously described image representations of the prior art are, therefore, also undesirable.
A hybrid imaging system can provide the capability to produce image representations or encodings that represent original scene colorimetric information. A system employing this type of image representation or encoding can form and store a colorimetrically accurate record of the original scene. That record then can be used to produce colorimetrically accurate rendered color images on output devices/media. In addition, a system employing this type of image representation or encoding can be used to produce rendered color images in which the original scene colorimetry has been deliberately and systematically adjusted, based on aesthetic considerations or other criteria.
In order for an imaging system to accurately represent original scene colorimetric information, its image representation or encoding must not include color alterations produced by the color reproduction properties of the imaging medium. U.S. Pat. No. 5,267,030 entitled METHODS AND ASSOCIATED APPARATUS FOR FORMING IMAGE DATA METRICS WHICH ACHIEVE MEDIA COMPATIBILITY FOR SUBSEQUENT IMAGING APPLICATIONS, by E. J. Giorgianni and T. E. Madden, provides a method for deriving, from a scanned image, recorded color information which is free of color alterations produced by the color reproduction properties of the imaging medium. In that patent, a system is described in which the effects of media-specific signal processing are computationally removed, as far as possible, from each input medium used by the system. In addition, the chromatic interdependencies introduced by the secondary absorptions of the image-forming dyes, as measured by the responsivities of the scanning device, are also computationally removed. Consistent with the input media compatibility objectives of that invention, each input image is transformed to an image representation or encoding corresponding to the exposures recorded from the original scene, or other source of exposure, which caused the image to form on the input imaging-recording medium. That exposure information then can be transformed to any of a number of different colorimetric representations or renderings.
In that disclosure, the extraction of recorded exposure information from each input medium allows for input from disparate types of imaging media, such as conventional photographic negatives and transmission and reflection positives. That same process of extracting recorded exposure information also can be used to effectively eliminate any contribution to color inaccuracy caused by chemical signal processing and by the properties inherent in the image-forming dyes.
However, the elimination of color inaccuracies caused by chemical signal processing requires a foreknowledge of such processing, i.e., a knowledge of the relationship between the latent image exposures recorded by the photographic medium and the amounts of the image-forming dyes, or the resulting measured optical densities, that are produced from those exposures. Those skilled in the art will recognize that the density vs. exposure relationships are subject to variability that may be caused by variations in the manufacturing of the photographic medium, by changes that occur after the manufacturing of the photographic medium, by variations in the photographic development and other chemical processing of the medium, and possibly by other factors. In addition, measurements of optical densities are subject to variability if the characteristics of the measuring device, such as a scanner, change over a period of time.
It is also well known to those skilled in the art that the density vs. exposure relationship for a chemically processed photographic medium can be determined using appropriate calibration procedures. The basic procedure begins with the exposure of a test sample of the photographic medium to a pattern of known exposures. After the film is exposed to the pattern, the medium is chemically processed, and the resulting optical densities are measured and related to their corresponding exposures. There are two types of patterns generally used; a) a continuous wedge that generates exposures from a relatively high exposure value to a relatively low exposure in a continuously varying fashion, and b) an array of spatial patches with stepped exposures of known increments of increasing or decreasing exposure going from one end of the array to the other. The stepped alternative (b) generally is preferred in the trade since this type of pattern has positional indicators at each step rather than only one at the end of the continuously varying pattern as in alternative (a).
In some applications, it would be desirable to include a calibration exposure pattern on the actual photographic medium that is to be used for recording images, rather than on a separate test sample of that medium. It may also be desirable to locate the pattern of exposure as close as possible to the image area. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,718,074, a camera is described that includes apparatus for exposing patterns of exposures on a photographic medium at the time of scene exposure. The patterns of exposures may be produced using the ambient light source or by using a calibrated light source included in the camera. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,563,717, Koeng and Giorgianni describe methods and means for providing calibration of photographic media requiring only a minimal area of the media.
Although the presence of a calibration exposure pattern on the actual photographic medium used for recording images is highly desirable, such calibration often is not available. In such cases, it can be helpful to have calibration for another sample of the actual medium, or for a medium having similar characteristics. That calibration then can be assumed to apply to the actual medium. However, differences among media samples and differences in chemical signal processing can lead to significant differences of the calibrated samples from the actual medium being used for recording images. As a result, the colorimetric accuracy of imaging applications in which the medium is used will be adversely affected. In addition, colorimetric accuracy will be adversely affected if the characteristics of the measuring device, such as a scanner, change over a period of time.